Kanga And Wombats Adventures

6.15am Rain! Yes RAIN!

It was certainly doona weather!

Breakfast over, it was time to reassess our plans for the day. Weather forecasts were not looking promising, so we all agreed to turn around at the first winding hole and scuttle back to the Marina at Festival Park, returning Ellie home a few hours earlier than anticipated.

I don’t think she minded that much! Over the past few days, we’ve experienced a bit of engine malfunction. Ellie would be chugging along nicely, then suddenly give up and just rely on gliding to move forward. After a little rest, she’d come good again, but it was a bit disconcerting when it happened… as Grahame found out in the Harecastle Tunnel!

So, it was anchors away in the rain.

And immediately John had to negotiate this!

Originally a railway bridge, they dismantled the bridge but not the pylon supporting it! Go figure! We were just so glad we hadn’t come across this ‘obstruction’ at 6.45pm last night!

With the winding hole turn successfully completed, we headed back to Stoke.

It was a wet, wet day. Jen and Grahame manned the locks, John and I shared the driving. We arrived back at Ellie’s marina soaked to the skin.

But we’d made it!

296 kms travelled, more or less, 142 locks opened and closed.

The fortnight had gone so fast, helped along the way by lots of chocolate and Welsh Cakes, exceptional teamwork, overall pretty good weather, and maybe a few bottles of wine!

At the beginning of the trip, we started our daily badge draw of job allocations for the day.

You can probably see a definite pecking order in these roles.

Through crew negotiations, in order of importance, the roles sat as follows:

Admiral, Captain, First Mate, Chief Engineer, Cabin Boy, Mutineer, General Dogsbody, Deck Scrubber, Duck Spotter, Galley Slave.

Now, I must point out that Jen and I challenged the position of Galley Slave being last in importance. Of course, it was a euphemism for the Cook, but the boys insisted on the literal meaning of the term Galley Slave, harking back to Viking times.

Bearing that in mind, points on a scale of 1-10 were allocated, with the following results:

John 53, Jen 52, Grahame 48 and Jude 33.

Jen would dispute this, as she was the only one who achieved Admiral status, and therefore should be able to claim overall importance and authority. I know she made me salute her several times!

And I was the only one who drew Mutineer (twice), and clearly, that was for good reasons (see above and below).

To keep our sanity at night, a Euchre game was initiated. We played a Round Robin competition, with a nail-biting finish.

Any one of John, Grahame or Jen could have been victorious, but as the girls went down on the final night, it was a draw between the boys on equal first, Jen coming in 2nd, with Jude last.

As I said, another reason for me to mutiny!

Now, back in September, it was Father’s Day in Australia, and Jane and Katie had the foresight to find a gift for Wombat that he could use on our trip.

Their gift was a voucher for Toby Carvery, an ‘all you can eat veg’ with 3 roast meats! Three roast meats! Can you believe it! John and Grahame even went the full mile and upgraded to the meal size ‘fit for a king’, only an extra £1.99!

Conveniently, Toby’s was right at Ellie’s marina, our final stop on this amazing adventure.

We were warm, had full tummies, and had a few bevvies under our belts.

It was a great end to our time together.

Although we passed many other narrowboats with great names, there’s only one gal for us.

We say a big thank you to the 5th member of our team for keeping us safe, warm, and most importantly, for avoiding a pump out (just)!